Transgender people in the Church

Post by **_Sethbag** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 8:59 pm

Abman, how do you know what one's spirit gender even is? What about the "woman" who was actually genetically a man but developed female genitalia because of a problem with testosterone in the womb? Was that really a spirit woman trapped in a man's genetic body who (fortunately) developed into a woman "by accident"? Did the Hand of God cause the testosterone problem in order to make sure the spirit gender thing worked out? Wouldn't it have been easier to make sure another X sperm fertilized that egg instead? Why do all of these things happen in such a way as to appear to be just random acts of nature?

But again, given the ambiguous situations where doctors or parents arbitrarily pick a gender for a baby born with ambiguous sex features, how do you know what gender that person's supposed spirit even is? What if they choose female, but the spirit's really a male? And what if that faux female marries a priesthood holder in the LDS church and gets sealed to him for time and all eternity, and they have wild sex for decades until they die, and find out in the spirit world that they were both really dudes? Can you see how stupid this all is?

Post by **_asbestosman** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 9:23 pm

Sethbag wrote:Can you see how stupid this all is?

The thing is, the cases you mentioned are very rare. We need not be concerned with that because God can work things out in the end. What is stupid to me is how significant it seems to critics.

Post by **_Chap** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 10:32 pm

asbestosman wrote:
Sethbag wrote:Can you see how stupid this all is?

The thing is, the cases you mentioned are very rare. We need not be concerned with that because God can work things out in the end. What is stupid to me is how significant it seems to critics.

Let's see .. you maintain that there are male spirits, which belong in male bodies, and female spirits, which belong in female bodies. Most of the time (because it has been honed by evolution over millions of years), embryogenesis works in a way that enables you to maintain this belief without running head-on into any counter-evidence.

Now whooompf! Your pattern of thinking can't cope with the very real (though rare) case that Sethbag puts to you. Do you start thinking "Maybe my way of thinking is too simple to cope with reality?". No. "God can work things out in the end."

If you think that way when the wheels fall off your theories, how would you ever find out if you were wrong about something? No ... wait .... Yes! You will ask God whether you are right, and he will tell you.

Did I guess correctly?

But ... suppose you were wrong about the answers in your head being from God ... how would you tell?

Post by **_Runtu** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 10:40 pm

asbestosman wrote:
Sethbag wrote:Can you see how stupid this all is?

The thing is, the cases you mentioned are very rare. We need not be concerned with that because God can work things out in the end. What is stupid to me is how significant it seems to critics.

It would be significant to you if you were one of the people affected by it. In a nutshell, the problem is that gender identity is hard-wired into Mormon theology. Heterosexual union is the apex of human potential. So, people for whom that is not possible cannot be explained in terms of the theology, so they necessarily become the "other." For people affected by gender issues or homosexuality, this is not a trivial issue. I guess you should be thankful it doesn't affect you.

Post by **_Sethbag** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 11:33 pm

asbestosman wrote:
Sethbag wrote:Can you see how stupid this all is?

The thing is, the cases you mentioned are very rare. We need not be concerned with that because God can work things out in the end. What is stupid to me is how significant it seems to critics.

The fact that they're rare isn't the point. It's the fact that it's possible. And that it's completely and utterly not considered by LDS doctrine, because LDS doctrine was formulated by man, based on some particular mens' limited knowledge about human gender and its biological origin, and the "corner cases" that sometimes happen were simply not included in the simplistic explanation.

The very fact that it would be possible for a "male spirit" to be housed in a female body, with marriage, sex, and sealing in the LDS temple, to another male spirit (housed in the usual male body), with no way to discern if this is true other than by genetic testing, or just assuming God will take care of it somehow, reveals the deficiency. Who cares if it's rare? The very fact that doctors in a hospital somewhere are actually determining which sex an infant with ambiguous genitalia will be raised as, with no apparent revelation on what sex that person's supposed spirit is, actually does kind of throw a monkey wrench into the LDS logic.

Literally all you have to fall back on is "well God will take care of it somehow, so I'm not going to worry about it." And that's what you have about Evolution, the development and pre-history of homo sapiens, the peopling of the American continent, Adam and Eve and what their "Fall" really is all about in terms of human history, the Flood of Noah, etc. Basically, anywhere the LDS religion has dared to intrude, which is in the least degree scientifically examinable, they have fallen up short and now can only say "well God knows, and maybe someday he'll tell us, but it's still all true".

At some point, a thinking person needs to get a clue. Abman, this is a clue calling. Are you gonna pick up?

Post by **_asbestosman** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 11:40 pm

Chap wrote:But ... suppose you were wrong about the answers in your head being from God ... how would you tell?

I do not claim the answers I gave are from God. They are merely my own reasoning behind why I see ambiguous gender as a non-issue in the eternities.

Runtu wrote:I guess you should be thankful it doesn't affect you.

Well, sure. I suppose I am thankful that many conditions do not affect me. I think God cares very much for people who have ambiguous gender. I also think He cares very much for homosexuals, starving children, and so on. That I don't keep worrying about it is in part because I 1) don't have the means to worry about everything and 2) have faith that God in His love will work things out to the best in all such cases.

Does that mean I think nobody should do anything? No. All it means to me is that I should worry more about personal interaction than about how to solve world hunger. Of course as you are well-aware, I appear to be failing miserably today. Some days are better than others I suppose.

Post by **_asbestosman** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 11:47 pm

Sethbag wrote:At some point, a thinking person needs to get a clue. Abman, this is a clue calling. Are you gonna pick up?

Nobody's home so I hope the clue decides to leave a message instead.

By the way, Nobody's perfect. ;)

But honestly, Sethbag et al. Are you telling me you never reconciled these things while you were active, believing members?

Post by **_Mercury** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 12:12 am

Jersey Girl wrote:For anyone: What would be the church's position in the case of infants born with ambiguous gentalia?

Who knows. They were "confused" in the preexistence?

Post by **_Sethbag** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 12:31 am

asbestosman wrote:
Sethbag wrote:At some point, a thinking person needs to get a clue. Abman, this is a clue calling. Are you gonna pick up?

Nobody's home so I hope the clue decides to leave a message instead.

By the way, Nobody's perfect. ;)

But honestly, Sethbag et al. Are you telling me you never reconciled these things while you were active, believing members?

I hadn't actually read about the gender problem before, but the other things I didn't so much reconcile as decide that the church was probably just wrong about them, but that it was OK for the church to be wrong about them. Eventually I could see that there was a serious problem with my belief system, and had to take the problems more seriously. In short, I got a clue. Now I'm trying to help you do the same. :-)

Post by **_Zoidberg** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 6:10 am

I would like to address the "rarity" of the issue. According to a study by Blackless et al. cited at the website of the Intersex Society of North America, approximately 1% of people have bodies that differ from standard male or female. That would be about - oh, I dunno - 66 million people? And the Lord's only true church has - oh, I dunno - only 13 million members? Only 1/5 that? You've got to be kidding me! It must not be so insignificant, after all.

And the number of people equivalent to anything from half to all of the current LDS receive surgery to normalize genital appearance? Oh my. What is stupid to me is how insignificant it seems to asbestosman.

If you think the number of LDS people right now is significant enough to make a difference to the world, I am unable to comprehend why you think the amount of people that don't fit into standard man/woman categories is insiginificant.

Let me once again state that I consider the numbers a non-issue for the purpose of this particular discussion because it's really about transsexuals and the Church's basis (or lack thereof, IMHO) for discriminating against them. However, you can only keep asserting that intersex people don't really make a difference if you are willing to admit the LDS church doesn't really make a difference.